Depression Sucks

[The Sir]

Maybe that's just the way you were meant to be.

[21KO]

........ But I am still hopeful and those dark days are no longer as frequent or long-lasting.

I decided to eschew medication as a solution.

Good to hear! The whole meds thing scares me. There's too much going on up there in that noggin to be throwing chemicals at, IMO. Unless those chemicals are contained within a frosty beverage, of course.

Seriously though, some folks swear by them, some folks have been screwed up by them. I personally think docs are too 'scrip happy' nowadays. The incentives from drug companies are too good.

[mboyd784]

Good to hear! The whole meds thing scares me. There's too much going on up there in that noggin to be throwing chemicals at, IMO. Unless those chemicals are contained within a frosty beverage, of course.

Seriously though, some folks swear by them, some folks have been screwed up by them. I personally think docs are too 'scrip happy' nowadays. The incentives from drug companies are too good.

Let me preface this by saying that I never suffered from severe or profound depression, nor did I ever seriously consider any sort of a cry-for-help.

This may sound crazy to some of you but, I've been on a meds schedule and I've been on a SELF-med schedule, and I didn't see all that much difference in either my general well-being or which pool of dependency I was swimming in. After a while, I decided to cut it all back, wipe the slate, and - as another poster mentioned - get it touch with I had that was positive and build from there. It was tough, but no tougher than before, and i felt like things were getting better because i was making them better.
In all honesty, I'm just a work in progress and I don't mind. I still self-med occasionally - pot here and there, powder once in a blue moon, a few drinks 1 or 2 nights a week - but the attitude and motivation behind it is completely different....It's not to escape my reality but to heighten it, and I enjoy control of the process. I can promise you I will never go back to living in medicated fog again and not owning responsibility for my growth, nor really caring. After everything, I came to the conclusion that to possess above-avg intelligence was to possess the potential for rabid introspection and the societal disassociation that goes with it - That was my stone and I was gonna roll it!

Just wanted to throw that out there and also say - I am by no means endorsing illegal drugs or alcohol as a beneficial activity for anyone, anytime!
thanks

[DeanCollins]

Hey CJ,
like others here said, there's no safe way to diagnose yourself. but you can try a few things. The #1 best treatment for depression is jogging or any other type of cardio exercise. You will deffinately feel better if you get in 40 minutes a day. Meditation is a great way to releve stress. Of course alcohol is a depressent and should be totally avoided, along with caffiene. Often feelings of depression center around the feeling of impending doom which can be real problems such as over due bills etc.....Or lack of acceptance of were one is in life compared to the expectations of others and/or self. And last but not least, living in the past with resentments and unresolved issues (forgive yourself, forgive others, move on). I'm with hermag, get yourself in front of a psychologist (many of us have already been there myself included) to sort it out and get a plan on dealing with it, before it deals on you. This may very well be you'll be over eventually, or you'll have to continue to treat it with either exercise and relaxation techniques or some supervised medication. good luck with it, hope you feel better.

[Air Force Cane]

if you are actively seeking to avoid stress because you can not handle life you have serious problems. You really need to go see a psychiatrist/psychologist depending on your attitudes towards SSRIs..

[J3553]

've suffered from severe depression for the better part of the past ten years. i've been institutionalized twice and i went to a special school for the "emotionally disturbed". i've felt a lot better for the past few years (and by better i mean not wishing i was dead every single day).

i can tell you first hand that meds don't really help at all. they make you feel a little better, but your have no emotional peaks or valleys. you just constantly feel "only fairly crappy". it sucks. all the other people i know who took anti-depressants feel the same way about them.

i wouldn't recommend seeing a doctor either. they don't give a damn about you and they're just gonna say the same thing to you that they say to all people with depression and then ask for a check. don't waste your time with them.

life today is freaking horrible. that's a fact. i mean look at the average human life. we're born and we get the first seven or eight years of our lives to truely enjoy. then we're put into a school system that tells us what to think and tries to shape us into productive members of society and train us for the work force. we get the first twelve years for free... well, free for the most part. then we have to pay thousands of dollars to get and extended education. for many of us, all those thousands of dollars really pay for is a note on a resume. many employers don't care what you studied in college. they just care that you went ("oh i see you got your masters degree in drawing with crayons... great! you're hired").

anyway... back to what i was saying. after you get out of college, you work your ass off for three or four decades for companies that don't care about you or even know your name until you screw up. then you get to retire just in time to watch yourself fall apart and die. this is what most of us call "life".

i think what helped me was finding humor and beauty in life. it's not easy to find, but even the hunt itself is very rewarding. problems will present themselves, and you need to learn to deal with them. most of the things that seem extremely difficult to deal with are actually very easy when you get the courage to face them. and the bigger the problem is, the stronger you'll be after you've delt with it.

i used to have fairly severe social anxiety as well, until i realized how stupid the primise of my social anxiety really was. i was feeling anxious and scared around total strangers. like i was affraid of what they'd think of me. but why? there's no good reason. who the hell are they? what do i owe them? nothing. so i started just being myself around people. some folks liked me, some folks didn't. oh well... life goes on.

i would also recommend reading some of george carlin's books or watching some of his more recent stand-up routines. i know that sounds kind of dumb, but trust me. they're life-affirming.

i hope this helps. good luck dude!

[Jumbo]

Note this thread is bumped from 2005.

Heard this on NPR yesterday, and was impressed with how well (typical) they covered the story.

Been following these studies for awhile. Very solid and great potential for treating depression and continues our greatly increasing understanding of synaptic and neural function. Neurobiology rocks. And Dr. Duman is brilliant; a great researcher and clinician. NIMH has a team on this, too.


http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012...in-connections


Ketamine Relieves Depression By Restoring Brain Connections

Scientists say they have figured out how an experimental drug called ketamine is able to relieve major depression in hours instead of weeks. Researchers from Yale and the National Institute of Mental Health say ketamine seems to cause a burst of new connections to form between nerve cells in parts of the brain involved in emotion and mood. The discovery, described in Science, should speed development of the first truly new depression drugs since the 1970s, the researchers say.

"It's exciting," says Ron Duman, a a psychiatrist and neurobiologist at Yale University. "The hope is that this new information about ketamine is really going to provide a whole array of new targets that can be developed that ultimately provide a much better way of treating depression."

Ketamine is an FDA-approved anesthetic. It's also a popular club drug that can produce out-of-body experiences. Not exactly the resume you'd expect for a depression drug. But a few years ago, researchers discovered that ketamine could help people with major depression who hadn't responded to other treatments. What's more, the relief came almost instantly. The discovery "represents maybe one of the biggest findings in the field over the last 50 years," Duman says.

<more at link and research update expected in December >

[mcsluggo]

thank you for showing that

[KAOSkins]

Special K to the rescue! Really good news though. Instant cure has win written all over it.

[Predicto]

There was some seriously bad advice given earlier in this thread from people who didn't understand anything about clinical depression or about how SSRIs work.

[MassSkinsFan]

Thanks for bumping this Jumbo. I haven't seen this thread before but I'm glad it's here. Wish I'd seen it years ago...

I went through a period where something was wrong but I didn't know what it was. The main problem was lack of motivatiion and an inability to really appreciate the things I'd always loved.

I finally talked about it with my wife (a LICSW) and she told me she thought I should ask my doctor about it. I did and we talked it through. His diagnosis was depression.

He gave me all the options discussed in the thread and after careful consideration I decided to try a mediction that has minor side effects, one of which is used to help smoking cessation (the drug is marketed under a different name for that). Since then I'm feeling better, but not all the way. I may be on these meds for the rest of my life. That would be OK with me, though I'd like to stop. I'm just really grateful that some of what was missing is now back.

I do tell people about this and find that there are lots of friends who've had similar experiences but don't feel comfortable sharing because of the associated stigma. One of the best ways to address that stigma is to feel free to discuss mental health issues. Mental health is about health. If you've got allergies I'd expect you to seek help; same goes for depression (or any other mental health issue). These things are stigmatized because people are scared of the unknown and ignorant to the facts. The best way to educate them is to talk about it.

Can I get some help down from this soapbox? My osteoarthritis is acting up!!!

[Predicto]

Screw the stigma. I have been on SSRIs for almost a decade, and I'm happy to admit it and discuss it with anyone. It is like a miracle how well SSRIs work once you find the right one for your body chemistry. I'm not "high" in any way, I'm just... myself again. Myself, the way I am supposed to be, and the way I was before depression kicked me in the azz.

[Botched]

There was some seriously bad advice given earlier in this thread from people who didn't understand anything about clinical depression or about how SSRIs work.

I was thinking the same thing.

My favorite was the guy who said life sucks, medication doesn't work, and you shouldn't see a doctor. I mean holy ****.

[MassSkinsFan]

Screw the stigma. I have been on SSRIs for almost a decade, and I'm happy to admit it and discuss it with anyone. It is like a miracle how well SSRIs work once you find the right one for your body chemistry. I'm not "high" in any way, I'm just... myself again. Myself, the way I am supposed to be, and the way I was before depression kicked me in the azz.

This is exactly how it is for me, though I'm still early on and I think I'm not all the way back to "me" yet.

The stigma thing comes more from other mental illness like schizophrenia or borderline personality. But I think it applies to depression too.

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

Any time I feel depressed, I sharpen my diet, get a massive weight lifting session in, and try to adjust my supplement regiment. Amino acids, vitamins, herbs. Do some research before you head to the Vitamin Shop.

Off the top of my head I can recommend the supplement 5-HTP, which is a precursor to Trytophan, an amino acid that boosts Serotonin in your brain. Serotonin makes ya feel good. Herbal supplements are plentiful and have a very wide range of effects. You will want to research the crap out of them to make sure decent studies have been done on each particular herb. For instance, a study just came out slamming the supposed benefits of St. Johns Wort, an herb that was thought to have anti-depressant effects. Turns out it's probably all placebo effect. On the flip side, there is no doubt in my mind herbs like Ginkgo and Ginseng have a strong effect.

Vitamins are another good option, but personally speaking - I try to get my vitamins from foods now. Taking vitamins in pill form can be slightly tricky, as you can overload on certain vitamins and minerals. That said, one of the first things you should try are B vitamins. Particularly B1, B3, B6 and B12. B9 (Folic Acid) is also good, but increased levels have been linked to accelerated cancer cells. I try to avoid eating any vitamin ridiculously high in it, just paranoid.